Hospitals Post Bed Sore Data

Hospitals across the commonwealth today begin posting another way to measure the quality and safety of care they provide patients.

The numbers of patients who suffer from bedsores could indicate whether patients are getting proper attention.

Karen Nelson with the Massachusetts Hospital Association says releasing this information will help the public review hospitals and is already pushing hospitals to improve.

"They said they can tell there's a difference." Nelson says. "They're looking at themselves, they're looking at their neighbors, they're asking themselves, can we do better and some of them have taken tremendous strides in implementing changes to programs to provide better care."

The association also posts information about how often patients fall while hospitalized and four other ways to measure the quality of patient care at 81 hospitals in the commonwealth.

This program aired on January 22, 2008. The audio for this program is not available.